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In 1977, aged 25 and fresh out of art college, Shigeru Miyamoto joined Nintendo, a company that had begun life manufacturing playing cards.

Mr Miyamoto began making a game played on computers called Donkey Kong. The hero of the game was called Jumpman, whose pet gorilla had kidnapped his girlfriend and imprisoned her at the top of a construction site. Nintendo executives in America decided to rename Jumpman as Mario, as the character resembled their landlord.

His distinctive look was born more out of necessity than design. In those days, the quality of the graphics was poor as there weren’t